SHIELDBREAKER: Play Report 3

This is the third session in what I'm calling the SHIELDBREAKER campaign, set in my Phantasmos campaign setting.

Click here for the Session 1 Play Report!
Click here for the Session 2 Play Report!
Click here for the NPC Character Cards!

Characters

·       Jim Casper: Tartarian-Mutant Specialist. Working in a storehouse in the tartarian kingdom, he learned about a mysterious martial cult, and has since been attempting to learn more about it. Has a mutation, a slit on his body which must be fed ancient artifacts.

          -- Player: z_bill

Kail: Mimic Knight (Fighter). Kail is a humanoid mutant, almost painfully bland with his stone-grey skin and coal black eyes. He actually sought out the shoglite parasite in order to feel special, and the change produced a sense of wanderlust in him. Now a mimic knight, he acts like a young astral Jack Kerouac, hitching his way around the cosmos/setting. He seeks out different ways to express himself to new people in new situations.
    -- Player: David Horowitz

Play Report

• After defeating Asimov Dengo last session, the party headed towards Occulon's industrial complex. As one might expect from that crazy bastard, he overworks his employees, who cannot stop for even a second to talk. They needed to talk to Occulon, but he was locked away in his office and could not be bothered. Zeffre contacted them from the mesmerist network, asking them to retrieve a secret document, which glowed faintly in only their vision. The glow was coming from Occulon's office.
• They created a Rube Goldbergian-level disaster on the assembly line and not-so-subtly blamed it on the nearby worker Toddward, who went into a panic. Security (Occulon's mafia thugs) and an aquorum security drone came to take him away.
• The players used this as an opportunity to incite a riot, prompting Occulon to come out. In the panic, Occulon decided to kill indiscriminately, using his hard-light projections to mow down unruly workers. 
• They investigated the office, finding both the document for Occulon (encrypted) and the second partial decryption of the SHIELD's location.
• As the Doomsday Clock ticked closer to midnight, they learned from Arnold Tanaka that Terry and Barry were attacking The Forum and that they would be compensated by the overworked police if they took care of it.

• They headed there, and found that while Terry was Punisher-ing the Forum, Barry was in his blue-phase, crying in the corner. Barry is not the brightest, and after conversing with him, they reminded him of childhood trauma, having no friends in school, and convinced him that Terry was just using him. He transformed into his red-phase and brutally pummeled Terry to death, tearing off his foldy flaps, then turned himself in to the police.
• The document that Terry was trying to steal showed that both Barry and Terry were former patients of Doctor Hyborea, prior to release, and after committing further crimes, were then taken to prison.
• Terry had also attempted to steal a corkscrew-shaped astrium looking glass. With this glass, the party would be able to enter the asylum on the astral plane while maintaining their "object" forms, which would be useful against the insane Doctor Hyborea.

• Before heading back to Doctor Hyborea's mansion, they decided to check out the Grand Stable, based on information from the partial decryptions. Mr. Myce, the head of the Grand Stable network, was not available, but they conversed with the attendants at the nearby station. One attendant was a red-skinned naked mole-rat with hands like the nose of a star-nosed mole, and the other was a tiny grasshopper able to rub his appendages together to produce muzak. 
• Through a pneumatic tube system across the Grand Stable network, they received a message from Mr. Myce that he was in communication with Arnold, and that they should come back when they have the full decryption. In the mean time, he provided them with tunneling gauntlets and two mirrors which reflect the light of each other.

• They also took a detour to Zeffre's secret base. She informed them that the document they stole for her from Occulon was for a planned coup against her father, the Grim General. After some discussion, she convinced the party that her intentions were (reasonably) noble, and she now "owes them a favor".

• On the way to Doctor Hyborea's mansion, they encountered a magi-SLIME with a wall of ice spell. After defeating it, they tracked it back to a cave containing several dead magi-SLIME and were able to recover two unidentified spells from their meridian cores.
• They broke into Doctor Hyborea's mansion, and once in his proximity, used the astrium looking glass to transport to the asylum on the astral plane. 
• Doctor Hyborea murdered the inmates, their “dead spaces” and his fractured mind filled the asylum with broken edges, gore, and various psychopathic entities. 
• "Psychopathic" both in the sense of being psychic entities and being insane...
• They encountered three entities. The descriptions were pulled from this table by u/semiurge on reddit, and I would encourage people to check out his work!
• Arrogance: A toad standing on its hind legs, wearing fine raiments. It is haughty, abhors contractions, and enunciates with infuriating precision.
• Misanthrope: A crawling tide of vermin, constantly devouring each other and rapidly breeding more. Speaks in a shrieking chorus.
• Self-Loathing: A worm made of rusted and bloody weapons. Speaks with grinding steel.
• Over a series of awkward, creepy, and Wonderland-esque conversations that I really wish I had recorded, the party made each of these three psychopathic entities confront their personal flaws and kill themselves.
• In doing so, they returned Doctor Hyborea to sanity. Before leaving the asylum, they met two new psychopathic entities:
• Honesty: Like a kind, fat old grandma; ugly on the outside, but warm and sweet on the inside.
• Responsibility: Like a frazzled single-mom working three jobs to take care of her kids. Doesn't take crap, off-putting at first, but only because she is working so hard to do what needs to be done.
• After leaving the asylum, the now (mostly) sane Doctor Hyborea gave the party the last partial decryption of the SHIELD's location, which seems to be somewhere deep in the labyrinthine Grand Stable network. 

And that's where we're leaving off, with what will hopefully be a fun dungeon crawl leading up to the conclusion of the SHIELDBREAKER campaign! I don't even need to do a "Breakdown", this was an awesome session and has me super excited for next time! I only wish I had recorded it because I think there was some really good stuff and I have a terrible memory for details, so I think I'm washing over some of the best parts :/.